May 29, 2008
It was 10 years ago this week that Phil Hartman died. We won't rehash the circumstances of his death, though, because that's not why we're here. We are here to pay tribute to the immensely talented man, who lives on through his outstanding work on Saturday Night Live, NewsRadio (40 episodes of NewsRadio are online), and The Simpsons. Here's a small sampling of some of our favorites, courtesy of Hulu and YouTube.
"The Sinatra Group"
"Cooking with the Anal Retentive Chef"
Perot and Stockdale
Clinton hits McDonalds
"Stop the Planet of the Apes, I Want to Get Off!"
The tour guide scene from So I Married an Axe Murderer.
- Ryan Stewart
May 29, 2008
BOARD GAMES
5 years ago
May 30, 2003 | Chris Wright extolled the advantages of an online social life.
“The thing is, my online social life has everything I could wish for. There's tenderness: ‘My condolences to you and your family.’ There's ribbing: ‘Chris, you are one dumb mule.’ There's fighting: ‘Of course I was insulting you, dumbfuck.’ There's flirting: ‘I got all dolled up for ya ... red silky panties & matching bra.’ There are confessions: ‘I shit myself at work yesterday and had to throw my boxers in the garbage.’ And there's outright weirdness: ‘Yeah, I don't shave my balls either.’
“Best of all, we can do this free of consequences. There are no diseases to worry about, no bar tabs to divvy up, no questions about where we'll meet or who's invited. We can sit around in our undies, zits on our faces and our hair in tatters, and make like we just stepped off the runway at a Prada fashion show.” Read Full Article
SOMEONE’S EXCITED
20 years ago
May 27, 1988 | Francis J. Connolly was awed by the Celtics’ playoff win over the Atlanta Hawks.
“By now, the astonishment having passed into memory and the riot of superlatives having subsided in the face of the new challenge from Detroit, it’s possible to put Sunday’s Boston victory over the Atlanta Hawks into some sort of realistic perspective. What we’re talking about here, remember, was only a basketball game...That Bird and the Celtics managed, through the force of sheer will, to prevail against a younger, faster, and more muscular Atlanta squad should be of little consequence in this hard and cynical world; Colonel Qaddafi, it’s safe to guess, was not impressed by what happened in the Garden Sunday afternoon, nor did news of the Celtic triumph have any noticeable effect on Wall Street, in the shipyards of Gdansk, or at the Vatican. What happened Sunday, after all, was just a game.
“All of which is like saying that the Titanic was a fairly big boat, that Astaire could dance a little, that Pavarotti can carry a tune, or that Marlene Dietrich had a decent set of gams. Boston’s victory over the Hawks was one of those exercises in artistry that demands understatement, precisely because there is no adequate way to describe it. Either you saw it, and you know what true athletic greatness is, or you did not, and the loss is yours.”
LOSE THE MUPPETS, MAN
25 years ago
May 31, 1983 | Owen Gleiberman found Return of the Jedi to be an unsatisfying end to the Star Wars trilogy.
“...the commercialism of Jedi isn’t what’s so bothersome...The truth is that, in trying to stage the ultimate Muppet-movie, Lucas has shortchanged his vision. The final chapter of the Star Wars trilogy is the last part of the saga that should have been gummed up with cuteness. We want grandeur in the climactic episode — blaring trumpets, an epic plot, a final duel so rousing we watch it with our hearts in our throats. Return of the Jedi is fun, but it isn’t a satisfying rave-up. Whenever the movie verges on the requisite sense of majesty, it’s interrupted by cuddly half-pints dancing around a treehouse like so many Winnie the Poohs. Just when you want George Lucas to get grandiose, he turns into a puppet master.”
EXTREME MAKEOVER
30 years ago
May 30, 1978 | D.C. Denison looked at the second generation of skateboarding.
“It may be dangerous, but it’s clean. And the effect of this fresh image on the sport is not lost on Skateboarder publisher Dave Dash. ‘There is no sex and violence, no dirty posters or condom ads in our magazine,’ he assures. ‘Parents can trust it.’ And they can also trust the new circle of skateboard heroes, who are careful to maintain an all-American image... In the words of Bill Riordan, the agent who steered Jimmy Connors to fame and currently manages 18-year-old Ty Page, one of the hottest skateboarders in the country, ‘To make this sport viable in America, you need to create national heroes to sustain it. Ty’s image is apple pie and ice cream. He’s clean-cut, wears proper safety equipment, and everyone wants to mother him. Jimmy Connors came up in the age of the anti-hero. It was easy to make a rascal out of him. Those days are over. We’re in the Goldwater phase of teenagers now.’ ”
May 26, 2008
CANNES, FRANCE -- Breaking news from the Cote d'Azur: Laurent Cantet's The Class, a kind of Gallic Half Nelson about boundary-pushing kids in a blackboard jungle, has taken the big Palme d'Or from Sean Penn's Cannes Film Festival Jury. Which is fine with me -- I like the movie. But I'd be remiss here not to give a l'il shout out to another deserving Cannes film, Albert Serra's El Cant Dels Ocells (Birdsong), an ultra-minimalist cross between The Gospel According to St. Matthew and Gus Van Sant's Gerry -- with a touch of the Three Stooges. In Serra's film, my Cinema Scope editor and pal Mark Peranson makes his screen debut in a genius turn as Joseph (that's him, rubbing sore head, above-left), the emasculated spouse of the immaculately conceiving Mary. I know a critic isn't supposed to review his friend's movie -- just like Penn isn't supposed to judge his buddy Clint Eastwood's Changeling, which somehow snared the Prix du 61e Festival. But I can say that Peranson, whether breathing onscreen or, in high drama, swatting a fly, proves himself the definitive heir to Marlon Brando's Method throne. And I can say that because this isn't journalism, it's just yet another blog wherein anything goes. Right?
-- Rob Nelson
May 22, 2008
NOT TO MENTION THAT FAMOUS FRENCH STENCH
5 years ago
May 23, 2003 | Steve Almond asked that Bush and Co. consider invading France.
“What the Bush regime needs to realize (and I think, deep down, it does) is that Americans are ready for a war against France. The recent squabble over Iraq is really just a symptom of a bone-deep, longstanding hatred between these two nations.
“I would remind those of you with a less-than-awesome historical grasp which side France supported in the Civil War...
“Maybe more important, France — and, more specifically, the French — are really annoying. A brief list of annoying things the French do:
1) Speak French. Spanish I could see, because Spanish is useful. The only reason to speak French is some lame effort to impress chicks.
2) Make depressing films. What is it about this whole cinéma de bummer? Are these people allergic to fun? Do they assume that doom and gloom automatically convey depth of intellect? And, if so, how does one explain the Jerry Lewis thing?
3) Sell weapons. If anyone’s going to be selling weapons to unstable despotic rulers, it’s the US of A. Got it?” Read Full Article
UNSEND MY HEART
10 years ago
May 22, 1998 | Ellen Barry discovered that technology brings nuance back into our lives.
“The world changed the first time someone wrote down a domain name on a cocktail napkin. When I realized this had begun to happen, it was at the end of a long party in a strange part of town, and I had an icy feeling that the exploratory phone call had been replaced by an exploratory e-mail. I was right. Over the past year or so, my friends and I have spent untold hours trying
“For one thing, we have been forced to develop a whole new repertoire of passionate gesture. The moment of slit-eyed fury when you delete a name from your address book! The terror of realizing it's too late to unsend! The new romantic clichés: the relationships that lived and died without face-to-face contact! The ability to document every tiny shift in dynamics! The condensed time scale! The subject line!” Read Full Article
CONFESSIONS OF A PÂTÉ GIRL
20 years ago
May 20, 1988 | According to Caroline Knapp, growing up in Cambridge could be both a privilege and a curse.
“Ah, growing up in Cambridge.
“A New Yorker subscription to go along with your birth certificate. A special set of bumper stickers for your first red wagon: BORN TO BE IN THERAPY and I BREAK FOR LIBERALS. And, along the privileged path that eases you from one higher-than average student/teacher ratio to the next (private kindergarten, private elementary school, private prep school, and thank-God-Dad-paid-for-this private college) a procession of strange contradictions. You eat tofu with your turkey at Christmas, which explains the tendency among some of your childhood friends to rebel by becoming Republicans. You are introduced to pâté and public television before you learn about Coke or cartoons…And, like people from hometowns everywhere, you end up, oh, a little screwed-up.”
SPY GAME
35 years ago
May 22, 1973 | In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Martin Lomansey Jr. talked to local campaign spy, "Thomas.”
“ ‘The trouble with those guys,’ says Thomas, ‘is that they got caught. You’d think they teach them better at the CIA, wouldn’t you?’ Thomas, who now works in state government as a reward for good and faithful service to a prominent elected official during a recent election, finds the failure of the Gemstone team the most repugnant aspect of the Watergate affair. He simply cannot believe that the men who planned and executed the break-in and related espionage could be as stupid as they were.
“ ‘I was only almost caught once,’ he recalls. ‘Back in 1971 I broke into a campaign trailer of Louise Day Hicks for ---------. Someone saw me and I almost got nailed. Even then I managed to get away with some good stuff and still make it look like a burglary not anything political.’ It was a break-in that received some coverage from the local press - a mayoral campaign sidebar at most. No one attributed anything political to it. And it is doubtful that Hicks ever suspected who did it. Thomas remained a top campaign aide to the very end.” Read Full Article
May 22, 2008
"Exposed," the front page story of this weekend's Times magazine (already posted online) feels like one long LiveJournal entry by former Gawker editor Emily Gould, and the internets are already abuzz about it. The ten-page story details everything from Gould's experiences at Gawker, to her high-drama relationships, and it's peppered with photos of Gould lazing about, with slightly greasy hair and flower tattoos on display, trying a bit too earnestly to look seductive and nonchalant with her laptop. She writes:
"Some of my blog’s readers were my friends in real life, and even the ones who weren’t acted like friends when they posted comments or sent me e-mail. They criticized me sometimes, but kindly, the way you chide someone you know well. Some of them had blogs, too, and I read those and left my own comments. As nerdy and one-dimensional as my relationships with these people were, they were important to me. They made me feel like a part of some kind of community, and that made the giant city I lived in seem smaller and more manageable."
All of this seems like a preamble to a tabloid-y, Fox News-type sensatinal piece: "Blog addicts! For some 20-somethings, WordPress is replacing reality." And in a way that Gould does not state directly in the story, it sort of is. Or, much to the chagrin of Phoenix bloggers, perhaps the Times hoped it'd be a generational commentary. New York Magazine worried yesterday: "What troubles us about Gould's oncoming article is not that it will be a rehash of everything we've seen before. It's that people will mistake her perspective on the Internet, writing, and fame as the perspective of an entire generation of bloggers." Exactly! That's what troubles us too! Gawker's already calling her our poster child! And the NYT just payed her gads of money to write the words "I" and "me" a gagillion times (actual number: 430, according to the math whizzes at NYMag).
Unsurprisingly, the comments look fairly positive on Gould's personal blog so far, but on the NYT site things are not looking so good: "I expect more from the New York Times. This article was nothing more than the ramblings of a moronic juvenile who calls herself a writer. I hope that the New York Times is not paying her for this piece. I long for the days when writers were people who had something to say," writes Joseph from Manhattan. "Dreadful, narcissistic, uninteresting stuff," writes "hazbin" from New Jersey. "An overlong article about the author talking about how much she enjoys talking about herself. Attention whore, indeed," writes Dave from New Jersey. And that's just the first two pages.
Here's the irony: Here we are, blogging about Emily Gould and Gawker and, well, blogging, and wishing that the media would stop covering everything Gawker media does. We'll step away if you will?
-Caitlin E. Curran
May 22, 2008
James Parker discusses "Mile-high schlub," his article on the Golden Age of flying with WFNX's Sandbox morning show.
LISTEN: James Parker on the Golden Age of flight.
May 22, 2008
CANNES, FRANCE ― The nearest that yours truly ever got to George Lucas, Harrison Ford, and Steven Spielberg was the balcony above the tent for their big photo call at their big Crystal Skull press conference in Cannes. See the back of George’s white-haired head (or crystal skull?) in the middle of my amateur snapshot above? See the arm that’s wrapped around his shoulders? That’s Harry’s arm. Now: See that little stub on the other side of Harry’s back? The thing that looks like a claw? That’s his other arm― or I’m pretty sure it’s his other arm, mostly hidden from my camera’s sight as it cradles another guy: another guy with tons and tons of cash, but with less height than the other two, a guy by the name of Steve. He’s the guy who made Raiders of the Lost Ark in 1981 ― and who raided Raiders thrice since, not to mention the archeological dig he pulled on our precious pocketbooks.
The critic’s thumb meanwhile ― in relation to Episode IV, a new hope for Indy fans, opening wide on Thursday ― is pointed...well, it’s pointed up, in fact. Not straight up, perhaps, but the thumb is distinctly erect ― excited, juiced, manly, action-packed, like the flick. Said thumb is the same one I used to push the “record” button on my l’il digital doohickey while the sounds of said press conference were beamed as if by magic to every TV set in the gargantuan Palais des Festivals, Ground Zero of Cannes. The fruits of that great labor are hereby presented to you below ― free of charge. Just a transcript of some loaded old dudes with crystal skulls flappin’ their lips about a movie en route to raiding your treasure chest.
― Rob Nelson
The first question was wondering whether there was there any sort of communist pressure on Mr. Spielberg to create this movie?
Spielberg: You want me to actually try to answer that question?
May 20, 2008
Spike Lee gives reviewers a super-advance sneak peak of his upcoming Miracle at St. Anna
CANNES, FRANCE -- “Turn off your cell phones, pagers, and iPods,” says Spike Lee, standing in front of a huge white screen at the Olympia multiplex in Cannes.He continues: “Turn off your Blackberries, Bluetooths, Clios, and Game Boys.”
This is a man who knows his brands.
As you can see from my photo (cameras were okay with him, evidently!), the filmmaker is wearing a Yankees cap that sports all the team’s series pennants (did I get that right?), and a baby blue All-Star Game sweatsuit with Nike swooshes, the top unzipped to reveal a pair of dangling crosses.One more brand: Lee is working for Uncle Walt, a.k.a. Disney, which put out his last work screened in Cannes, the woefully underrated, commercially trifling, and pretty damn great Summer of Sam--the missing link between, among other things, Fritz Lang’s While the City Sleeps and David Fincher’s Zodiac.“This,” Lee says, pointing at the screen, “is just a small taste of -- if I do say so myself -- an epic film. It’s David Lean in Italy.”At this, someone in the audience whistles -- okay, I admit, it’s me. I came here this afternoon thinking the eight-minute clip reel of the director’s forthcoming WWII movie Miracle at St. Anna would represent Lee’s Open City -- or maybe his Bicycle Thieves, judging from the invite’s photo of a dirty-faced kid under a grown man’s arms, rubble beneath their feet. But “David Lean in Italy”--as a Spike Lee joint--sounds too good to miss as well.The lights dim and, in beautiful widescreen Panavision, there are the African-American men of the 92nd Infantry Division, enduring a Nazi radio broadcaster’s psychological warfare taunt. Later, we see the aforementioned Italian kid being lifted out from under a mountain of brick by a 92nd soldier, whom the kid calls a “chocolate giant.”Other critics will likely say this bloody-looking ode to the wartime miracle is Lee’s Saving Private Ryan when Uncle Walt sends it to U.S. civilians on October 10.But speaking as one who has lately been wondering what Lee has been up to this election year, I think now I know. And, as they say in election years, I approve this message. -- Rob Nelson
May 19, 2008
This is an AP photo.
There's not much more that needs to be said at this point: Paul Pierce had the game of his life at the best possible time, helping the Celtics withstand an amazing effort by LeBron James. You can read more about it here, here, here, and (at some point today, presumably) here and here.
- Ryan Stewart
May 17, 2008
ce:office" />
CANNES, FRANCE -- Two minutes before I snapped this amateur photo, the pro shooters featured in it had unceremoniously displaced me from my coveted spot -- crouched on the floor with my laptop, within cord’s reach of what had been the last open AC outlet in the Orange corporation’s moist, teeming Wi-Fi Lounge. Oh la la--Cannes is glamorous, n’est-ce pas? Seems what had drawn every long lens in town to my humble workstation was “the twins”-- toted in utero by Angelina J., who was herself carted from press conference to photo shoot by DreamWorks’ animation division, those dutiful product-stuffers of Kung Fu Panda. (Great -- now my kid will want one.) No complaints here, really, as my lost square-inches of Lounge space are simply the price paid in Cannes’s age-old art and commerce equation: Wimpy geeks like moi make way for the macho paparazzi to shoot Angie and the twins, whose photos ostensibly allow le festival to screen the work that wimpy geeks would much rather think about -- like Tokyo!, an omnibus film whose coolest installment, by sporadically productive French auteur Leos Carax (Pola X), is an alternately nasty and tender throwback to the sympathetic-monster movies of the early 20th century. (The tryptych's other two installments are by Michel Gondry and Bong Joon Ho.)
In Carax’s episode of Tokyo!, the titular city is menaced by “Mr. Merde” (brilliantly played by Denis Levant), a sewer-dwelling, evidently anti-capitalist oddball with a green suit, a milky white eye, a long red beard, and a hunchback swagger--and a few hand grenades. [No word on whether Carax's Mr. Merde is in any way inspired by M. Gondry's Mr. Merde -- ed.]
Urban terrorist? Performance artist? Homeless man? Whatever the designation (Carax’s end credits promise a New York-set sequel called Merde in U.S.A.), I could’ve used you in the Wi-Fi Lounge, Mr. Merde. Now that guy knows how to clear a room. --Rob Nelson
May 16, 2008
BAD TIMES
5 years ago
May 16, 2003 | Dan Kennedy called for “tougher standards” in journalism in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal.
“Yet by purging Blair, it would be wrong to think that all is now well at the Times, or in journalism. Tougher standards are needed. We all deserve better. I was struck by a comment that Alex Jones, director of the Joan Shorenstein Center...at Harvard’s Kennedy School, made to USA Today. Jones noted that in the Times’ self-examination, the family of former POW Jessica Lynch and others said they were well aware that Blair had falsely claimed to interview them...But they didn’t complain to the Times because they didn’t expect any better of the media. ‘They didn’t say, ‘Holy cow,’ this is somebody who is clearly unscrupulous.’ Instead, their response was to shrug their shoulders and say, ‘Hey, what did you expect?’ ’ Jones was quoted as saying.” Read Full Article
GOOD RIDDANCE
10 years ago
May 15, 1998 | Matt Ashare presented the 1998 BMP award for Best National Act to Radiohead.
“For a band whose career in the US was launched in 1993 with the kind of perilously catchy...single that can easily kill a band's career by marking them as a one-hit wonder, England's Radiohead have truly come a long way. Sure, ‘Creep’ was great the first dozen times you heard it, but you can't blame Thom Yorke for not wanting to sing it anymore...Johnny Greenwood hated the song so much from the get-go that he tried to muck it up with those cacophonous false starts on his guitar...But Yorke, Greenwood, and the rest of the band refused to be defeated by success, returning in '95 with The Bends (Capitol), a disc...with absolutely no ‘Creep,’ a disc as complex as ‘Creep’ was simple...
“The Bends in all its convoluted glory was really just a twisted prelude to OK Computer (Capitol), which arrived last summer with nothing resembling a workable single and very little in the way of a coherent lyric. Majestic probably doesn't begin to describe the operatic scope of the album, but it's not a bad place to start...So now some of the same critics who wrote the band off after ‘Creep’ hit the charts are holding Radiohead up as modern-rock saviors, which they probably are.” Read Full Article
SELECTIVE LISTENING
30 years ago
May 16, 1978 | After having had bad experiences with living arrangements due to his musical pursuits, pianist Paul Raeburn seemed to have found the perfect situation.
“Not too long ago, I thought I had solved all my problems. I had an apartment to myself (no roommates to worry about). It was on the second floor (not too difficult to get the piano in and out). And the downstairs neighbors never complained. I could never quite understand why they never complained, but I was happy to let the matter rest.
“In fact, so tolerant were the neighbors that they allowed several people to enter the apartment one weekend when I was away and help themselves. When I returned, I found that the burglars had chopped a large hole in the door, upended the dresser, pried into a locked metal file cabinet, strewn clothes and books everywhere, and the neighbors, bless their hearts, had never said a word. Stereo, television, tape recorder, typewriter, piano amplifier...had been removed. Miraculously, the piano stood in the center of the living room. (I don’t blame the thieves for not taking it—I know how difficult it is to get it down the stairs.)” Read Full Article
THE HAVES AND THE HAVE-SHOTS
35 years ago
May 15, 1973 | George Kimball pointed out the differences between those folks sitting in the grandstand and the clubhouse and those in the infield at the Kentucky Derby.
“If you are a Governor or a Mayor or a Newspaper Editor or a Kentucky Colonel or if you just happen to have a lot of money or happen to be on intimate terms with somebody who has a lot of money or even somebody whose family once had a lot of money then you will wind up in the grandstand, the clubhouse, or in one of those boxes near the finish line which run about $50,000 for Churchill Downs’ 50 yearly racing days but which are rarely used save on Derby Day...
“If, on the other hand, you (a) have developed a tolerance for claustrophobia, (b) loved Woodstock, (c) have an aberrant penchant for attending spectacles you are unable to see, (d) drink a lot, and (e) don’t have the money or the connections for a seat, you will end up in the infield.”
May 16, 2008
John Edwards endorsed Obama. Barry Bonds got indicted on 15 counts of perjury and obstruction of justice. And there were a bunch of celebs at the Celtics' playoff game the other night. Care? Or who cares?!? The Sandbox guys pose the question to Phoenix editor Lance Gould, Sarah Faith Alterman, and Henry Santoro. Listen to the mp3 here.
MP3: Cares or Who Cares? John Edwards, Barry Bonds, and celebs at the Celtics' game
May 16, 2008
Images via http://flickr.com/photos/thomasbrand/
They invited the print-edition people but not us webkinz to the grand-opening of the most hugenormous Apple store in America; a couple of the lucky ones came back raving that it's prettier than the new ICA. Sacrilege! In any case, we're reduced to Flickring and YouTubing our way around this mammoth, green-friendly fortress of Appletude until we can get our asses down there this weekend. Which is probably just as well, given what we've seen in terms of lines-around-the-block videos. Looks ridonculous, and apparently it recycles rainwater.
FLICKR: Most recent photos from the Boston Apple Store
YOUTUBE: Latest video from the Boston Apple Store
MAKING OF: The Boston Apple Store
May 16, 2008
TMZ reports that Rob Lowe -- yes, that Rob Lowe -- was spotted in town farting ("loudly"!) to illustrate what he thinks of the Boston Celtics. Good thing this didn't get out the other night. We shudder to think what would happen if Lowe were to make a return visit to the Garden on Sunday (if necessary, natch), and the Celtics faithful were to reply all at once. TMZ failed to report what Lowe's fart actually smells like: a glaring omission, if we do say so ourselves.
Although Lowe farts in Ray Allen's general direction, he apparently has more fragrant thoughts about our fair city's dance-party contingent: Lowe and Superbad's Jonah Hill -- both of whom are in the area to shoot the new Ricky Gervais movie up in Lowell -- dropped by Zuzu before repairing to the Middlesex Lounge on Tuesday night for everyone's favorite best-DJs-in-town confab, Hearthrob. Our spy tells us Lowe was ushered in through the back door, but not before the down-the-block line got a good gander at him. Alas, our spy had to wait another half-hour to make it in, after which he was rendered faceless by Baltimoroder's relentless set, and thereafter forgot to look for the stars. So like everyone else, we're left waiting on the Nicky Digital photos for further elaboration.
May 16, 2008
Our farthest-flung correspondent, Julia Throop, who's spent the
past year living in China
teaching English, was nowhere near Sichuan
Province when the magnitude
7.8 earthquake hit on May 12, but the shock was enough to rock her world. She
emails this report.
Everybody knows the feeling. You have one too many cups of
coffee and suddenly your pulse musters the superhuman strength to throw your
entire body into a rhythmic sway. On Monday, May 12, a couple dozen students and
I sit in a ninth-floor classroom in Changzhou,
China, idly
turning Dostoevsky's pages, sipping some black coffee. Suddenly I felt that
very shaky sensation.
Though I'm seated, I began to rock, involuntarily, back and
forth. I blamed the caffeine, casting a rueful eye on my empty thermos, before
I noticed that the sway wasn't exactly rhythmic, and it was gaining velocity. I
glanced up, expecting to see my students quietly and diligently looking at
their individual computer screens. Instead, they're just as confused as I am.
One-by-one, they're taking off their headsets and looking at each other — and
at the florescent lights swinging above their heads — with expressions of sheer
panic.
Okay, it's not just me.
Suddenly someone yells "IT'S GOING TO COME DOWN!" which
does nothing to ease the situation. I stand up to dismiss the class, and within
five minutes we were in front of the building — policemen, teachers, students,
and maintenance crew crowding the entrance.
I ran home to inform my fellow Americans of what I assumed to be
the product of some shoddy Chinese construction and a strong wind. It wasn't
until three hours later during a private tutoring session that one of my
students asked me, casually, if I'd felt "the quick" that afternoon.
"The quick?" I responded. "Yes. The essquick." It dawned on
me. "That was an earthquake?"
A smile made its way from ear to ear, and upon seeing it, her
face melted into an expression of pity and resentment. "Yes. Very dangerous."
Her tone scolded me as much as her words. I tried to explain to her that I'd
never felt an earthquake before. That back home in Boston, Massachusetts
we stack houses and stores on top of each other for breathing space. An
earthquake would be welcome. She didn't laugh. Looking at the headlines that
evening, I found it hard to smile as well. "1000 Feared Dead from
Earthquake in Sichuan Province," "Earthquake of 7.8 Hits Western China."
Coupled with footage of people being pulled from the wreckage; it struck me
that this was a natural disaster of dire proportion. An earthquake in Wenchuan
county, on the other side of China
and roughly 1000 miles from my classroom, had produced dramatic tremors in Changzhou.
Three days later, one of my students, as per his assignment, gave
a short speech. He chose to talk about all the misfortune China has suffered during the past year — Sichuan earthquake
included. His speech, however riddled with statistics and misleading facts,
moved me to share my personal feelings with the class.
"In the past few years, there have been lots of natural
disasters. First, there was the tsunami in Southeast Asia.
Then, Hurricane Katrina. And only recently, there was the cyclone in Myanmar. But I
think China
has had an especially challenging year. I want you all to know that people
around the world are thinking about China right now. I speak for my
friends and fellow foreigners when I say that we're sorry." A small chorus
of "thank you-s" followed, and I felt that, even in a small way, our
two countries bonded.
— Julia Throop
Changzhou, China,
May 15, 2008
